LANSING — Bill Ballenger has lost his job as a contributor to Inside Michigan Politics, the Lansing political newsletter he started in 1987, after a televised roundtable in which he downplayed the scope of the lead crisis in Flint’s drinking water.

Susan Demas, the publication’s editor and publisher, issued a statement Wednesday morning saying Ballenger is no longer with the newsletter — the result of “indefensible” comments he made about the health effects of lead poisoning while representing the publication as a guest on WKAR-TV’s “Off the Record” show Tuesday night to recap Gov. Rick Snyder’s State of the State address.

Ballenger, a longtime state political observer and former lawmaker, said during the show that he is a part-time Flint resident who has never experienced discolored water or elevated levels of lead in his blood.

“We’ve got no problems and none of the people on my street do,” Ballenger said during the show, turning to former state Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat from East Lansing who served as a fellow panelist. “And the situation in Flint is nowhere near as bad as you are depicting. You have no idea what’s going on in Flint. I was born and brought up there. I know what’s going on.”

Ballenger told Crain's this afternoon that he stands by his comments.

“It’s her right," he said of Demas' decision. "She’s got the authority. She’s the publisher. She’s the owner.”

Snyder’s address centered on Flint and included a request for $28 million to help cover rising costs for health and water supplies, including bottled water and filters. The city has been trying to contain a crisis that started after a decision made under a state-appointed emergency manager to switch water sources from Detroit to the more corrosive Flint River caused elevated levels of lead to show up in children’s bloodstreams.

The effects of lead are irreversible and can lead to cognitive and behavioral problems, especially in children.

During the show, which aired on Michigan State University’s PBS affiliate station and can be streamed here, Ballenger said he talked to unnamed doctors at Flint’s Hurley Medical Center who told him they “don’t think there’s a crisis anywhere near of the magnitude that you’re hearing described.”

At one point, Ballenger said lead poisoning is “not necessarily” permanent.

Demas wrote that she has “great respect” for Ballenger, but Flint is a “public health catastrophe” that can’t be downplayed.

While Ballenger is “entitled to his opinion, but not his own facts,” she added: “I cannot have anyone associated with Inside Michigan Politics who minimizes the impact of this terrible public health disaster that will impact people’s lives for decades to come. I am truly sorry to everyone hurt by Bill’s comments at a time of already considerable anxiety and pain.”

Ballenger told Crain's that he would clarify one point he made during the interview: that he did not talk to doctors about lead within Hurley's hospital building, but rather in other contexts.

Demas purchased Inside Michigan Politics from Ballenger in 2013. He had continued to write for the publication as a contractor. In an interview Wednesday, she said she had spoken to Ballenger by phone Wednesday about the decision, which she called difficult.

She said she spoke to him earlier Tuesday after similar comments he made during an independent interview with WJR-AM radio host Paul W. Smith.

“It’s my position that he stated many things that were factually inaccurate, which violates my journalistic standards,” Demas told Crain’s. “It goes beyond giving an opinion.”

Demas said she will honor the remainder of a three-year business contract that ends in November related to her purchase of the company, but Ballenger will have no editorial role.